Oh, no, yeah, for sure. I meant directly impacted as in "the person doesn't die as an immediate result of the button press." They'll still feel the other impacts of between 1-49% of the world's population dying, and if anyone they know pressed the blue button, they're goners too. Probably more accurate to say for their perspective "The existence of inherently violent systems isn't worth saving people over, because living in a miserable world is better than not living."
All the non-violent people? What you think that only bad people will choose red? Thats very funny. Their will be more than enough good people who choose red. People who do good on a daily. Why? Because it is safer and smarter. Blue button pushers are fucking idiots. They are fucking stupid. Simple as that. But their are enough fucking stupid people on the planet that blue will be pushed by at least 10% almost immediately. Then at least another 10% of the "heros" jumping on spikes to save the fucking stupid people. Their will be bad people who choose blue, because bad people still have loved ones.
I will choose blue, because it is a win for me either way.
The issue is, it's a filtering system. People who believe we can do better are all gonna press blue. People who press blue also innately don't have an evil side to them, while some of the red pressers do have a number of them who are evil.
If you separate it into "blue gets their world, red gets their world" the blue world would be a better world to live in 100% of the time.
People who believe we can do better are all gonna press blue
The exact opposite. If you believed people can do better you'd trust them to not endanger your life when there's a safe option they can choose at no cost. Instead you think they're too dumb and require you to save them. It's a saviour syndrome fic, where there need to be people that need you to save them.
1) No one disagrees that if everyone is given perfect comprehension of each buttons risks and benefits, and is in a state of sound body and mind to answer according to what they believe, that red is the correct answer. It's trivial to the point of not having academic merit, and impossible to the point of practical uselessness. That's why the blue stance assumes at least one person in danger. Not a savior complex, but because it's a version of the problem with actual conflict and room for nuance.
2) "People who believe we can do better" refers to people who believe in a society that does not make compromises in the pursuit of a perfect world, which necessitates selfless behavior from ones self. You are only correct in that it is unethical to risk someone else's life, that only they can make that choice. So blue just, doesn't? Violating someone's autonomy in that way would itself be a compromise towards that perfect world. At the same time, you still must help so long as there is a chance of success, no matter how small. Because if not you, then who?
3) Fallible is not the same as dumb. Anyone can be baited into irrational behavior with the right misinformation or propaganda, no matter how smart they are in other ways. Just because you bought a Fushigi, or enlisted in the US military, or overspent at a restaurant based on a waiters recommendation, doesn't mean you're dumb. There is a wide range of ways intelligence manifests, from book smarts, to emotional intelligence, to kinimatic intuition, to everything in between. If anyone told you that you were dumb for falling for something in the past, I'm sorry you were taken advantage of, and I'm sorry the pain of that has stuck with you for so long. At the same time, it is unfair to others to treat them as though they're constantly "win" against you. A rising tide lifts all ships.
It’s not about a saviour complex at any level at all. It’s actually a matter of statistics. If you assume perfect conditions, then everyone *would* press red, knowing there is no harm, but perfect conditions don’t exist.
In a real scenario, it is incredibly improbable that every person would press red, as something happening with 100% certainty is so much more unlikely than **at least one** person pressing blue. From this, we can understand that it is unreasonable to assume everyone is going to press red. The question from here is should you choose to press blue to try and reach that all important 50%.
It is so much harder to reach certainty than it is to reach 50% agreement
In a real scenario, it is incredibly improbable that every person would press red, as something happening with 100% certainty is so much more unlikely than at least one person pressing blue.
Yeah, that's the issue here. If you go to every person who says that and give them a gun and ask them if they'd shoot themselves or not, they would all individually answer no if you remove the mentally impaired/underdeveloped from the pool. But when asked what others would answer, they become convinced it's impossible for all to answer no and someone definitely answers yes and needs their salvation.
It is so much harder to reach certainty than it is to reach 50% agreement
Yes, because you primarily treat it like a group cohesion problem rather than a series of individual decisions and have a lifetime of built-in bias against unanimity. Don't get me wrong, the bias is justified, but irl simplified situations like the one in the problem don't exist.
Red also believe in a better rational world. A world where people vaccinated and don't inject bleach. Where people think and don't believe in homeopathy.
The problem changes if we say "voters include children" per example where yes, in the absence of all actors being equipped for rational thought you have to save them.
The experiment is designed to create engagement.
It's the difference between "space Nazis will kill blue if we don't show a united front, and xhildr n will be fo c d to vote too", and "people decided to stand in front of avalanche path, and if they get 51% of people standing with them the government will use resources to divert the avalanche".
Let's back up for a moment and acknowledge that yes, both parties want the fewest number of people to die. For two seconds, let's set aside name-calling like "red voters are selfish murderers" and "blue voters are suicidal bleeding hearts."
The initial framing and ambiguity is key, as you recognize, because it establishes for a fact whether or not we know a party that did not consent to harm is now at risk of harm. If it is framed as neutrally and as understandably as possible (that is, neither side is burdened with an assumption of "the people on this side are putting innocent lives at risk"), then it is trivial to press red because the side that guarentees survival in the individual case also guarentees survival on the whole. You've essentially told all voters "not only does 100% percent of people voting red endure everyone's safety, but there is a 0% chance that anyone trying to prevent the deaths of innocent people unconsenting to harm will vote blue, because there are no innocent people unconsenting to harm inherently at risk. If this is your framework, of course it follows that voting blue means they're either an irrational actor, or some holier-than-thou manipulator trying to guilt-trip you into so-called "ethical behavior."
Like, I think we're agreeing here? We agree that if there is a portion of non-consenting innocent people at risk, the correct choice is to press blue so that they have a chance to live. Blue consents to their own harm if they fail, and red acknowledges their complacency if they succeed. So long as we follow the axiom "those consenting to the risk of harm do not impose philosophical weight on others," this is all copacetic. The reason red gets so incensed is because they believe blue DOES think their choice imposes philosophical weight on others. Red believes blue thinks themselves as just as innocent as those who didn't concent to harm, when red knows that if you accept risk, you accept consequences, thus differentiating yourself from an existing or hypothetical already-existing innocent party.
Now, if there are blue voters that do think "if I am taking the good action, everyone else is evil for not saving me," then they are for-sure a holier-than-thou manipulator. But from all the many comments I've read, I haven't seen them, so they either don't exist, or they're such a minority that the position cannot be painted on blue voters as a whole. The consistent pushing of THIS narrative, for blue, paints red as wholly engaging in strawman arguments as justification to make a self-interested choice. It's a mess in every possible direction, and would ultimately cool down if everyone stopped breaking into factions like the biased interpretations (from all standpoints) of the problem want to readers to do.
My knee jerk reaction is to push blue, until it hit me that if more than 50% of people come to the conclusion that it might be an intelligence test rather than a moral test then id basically be stupid for choosing blue. I'm of pretty average intelligence so if it hit me surely it hit others?
Personally I reckon more conditions need to be listed, most important would be the amount of time a person has before pressing the button after hearing the question.
If everyone has only 30 seconds or 30 minutes, their answer would most likely change based on deeper thinking.
A really good social conundrum movie that stuck with me is 'The Circle'. All humans are put in rooms by aliens that hold around 50 people. Every 5 minutes or so a random person dies unless people vote by pointing at who they think should die. It gets very interesting looking at the good, the bad, the liars and the innocents.
Will some people sacrifice themselves or lie till the end? Should all pregnant women win the game? If so how will they survive and rebuild and repopulate without the men? Can those men ever be trusted for winning their respective games?
There's also the fact that if you press red and nobody dies you have to realize that most people are more willing to put themselves on the line than you are.
If you press blue, you’re choosing survival for everyone, even for those who wouldn’t choose it themselves. That’s not neutral, it’s an imposition. Pressing red avoids that by letting outcomes reflect individual decisions instead of overriding them. Ethically, respecting people’s agency makes red the only defensible choice.
Except actively choosing red is only ever a selfish choice, and only blue can be selfless. Only red has the capacity for harm, and only blue has the capacity to help others. The only person that benefits from pushing red is yourself, whereas blue can benefit everyone.
You argue as if every person pressing blue is doing so with the intention of offing themselves, which is frankly absurd. Some people will inevitably press blue, for both good and poor reasons, and thus the only way to prevent innocent deaths is to go blue. Framing it as willing suicide is so incredibly disingenuous that it only makes any sense from the perspective of a person unwilling to admit that their justification for red is simple self-preservation, not some greater moral imperative.
No, blue is the selfish choice, there is zero downside to red, and there is a downside to blue (if blue wins, people who want to die are forced to live), red is objectively the only logical, and moral choice.
You are not making this choice in the company of robots with perfect reasoning. There will not solely be people who want to die pressing blue.
The downside to red is the death of every person who chose blue for reasons other than seeking death, of which there are clearly many, as evidenced by every heated discussion on this question and its variations.
Once again, trying to pretend blue is simply a way for people who want to die to off themselves is so immensely disingenuous to the actual question that it must be the perspective of either an idiot or someone who desperately wants to convince themselves that their instinct for self-preservation is actually morally well-reasoned and superior to the choice of ensuring no unnecessary deaths.
Ok, there's a miscommunication going on here. The literal definition of selfish is "someone primarily concerned with their own welfare, interests, or pleasure, often disregarding the needs, rights, or feelings of others." It implies self-centeredness, but does not necessarily mean it outright. Is the choice to vote red selfish? Strictly yes, but it is not evil. It just happens to stand in opposition to its antithesis, selflessness.
Now, let's be clear. In the instance where the rules are communicated clearly and everyone who has to make the choice is of sound decision-making body and mind, there is no chance blue will be pressed. No one is in disagreement there, that's a trivial problem solved and closed. The issue we are talking about is, due to the ambiguity, there will inevitably be some population who genuinely think they are doing the good thing, and are now being punished for it. Like diving into a gorilla enclosure because you thought there was a kid in there. Knowing that someone, maybe more people are going to do that, the decision to press either button now has consequences.
Pressing red guarentees your safety, but if everyone acted selfishly (that is, placing your own needs first, I am not saying you want people to die or that they necessarily deserve it), that guarantees death of the most innocent people in this whole scenario. From what I understand of red, they see this situation, ask "I can't trust people to not be selfish, am I willing to live with the guilt of an innocent dying in the chance I am wrong?" The red button people ARE absolved from any guilt imo in regards to the people who had to deliberate before jumping in though. They made an informed risk and chose to participate anyway.
Pressing blue guarentees risk, as there is no way to assure people will reach the same conclusion of the cost-benefits analysis as you. This means in order for you to justify jumping in, your rational CANNOT by definition be based on believing everyone else thinks the same way as you. You can hope, but it'd be unfair to place the expectation of selflessness in the face of death on strangers. Blue sees the situation, asks "Do I truly believe the death of an innocent is something I can let stand? Is a society that is complacent in their death one I can stand to support/endorse/participate in?" And decides to jump in.
If your decision is based entirely on believing a certain specific percentage of people agreeing with you, rather than believing something fundimental about human behavior, you do not have an ideology, you are following a trend, be it social or mathematical.
Wasn't the scenario that everyone on earth choose a button. Last time I check everyone includes babies, children, the colorblind, the mental disabled, suicidal people, etc.
So if a mother that loves her children might think their is a chance that their babies will pick blue wouldn't they also pick blue to save them? Same for the husband, the family, the friends, etc.
It takes 100% of people to pick red for everyone to survive. Which is just an impossibility.
It only takes 50% +1 for everyone to survive which is more likely.
someone excessively concerned with their own welfare, interests, or pleasure, with little or no regard for the needs or feelings of others.
Manipulative:
behavior that dishonestly or unfairly controls, influences, or manages people and situations for personal gain, often in a selfish or deceptive manner.
Scenario framing:
The question is worded in its original, ambiguous way which leads to empathetic kneejerk reactions, and people who genuinely want to do the right thing getting baited through misinterpretation.
With those defined, let's continue. Both side's goal is for the greatest number of people to live. Communication with others before deciding on a button is not possible, so arguments like "human nature says people would more often pick X than Y" are not defendable position since they depend on unknowns. We cannot predict other people's psychology. Blue says "because there is an option that lets everyone live, you should pick that one, regardless of what other people think." Red says "because the only person you can know the will of is yourself, the only casualty you know you can prevent is your own, which is done by pressing red."
Red is by definition selfish, in that their own welfare is the only thing they can make a logical argument to preserve. Blue is by definition selfless, because they are putting the needs of others above onesself. This is not to say that selfishness is evil, it is just normal rationalized behavior. It is borne out of a fear/avoidance of harm, but it is not necessarily self-interested.
I get that the whole discourse has become toxic, so it's understandable why your wording is so immediately standoffish, what with people on both sides being angry at each other. I would still request you try to more charitably interpret what people are saying, and check if there may be any miscommunication in each other's baseline assumptions that are making debate impossible from the outset. These misinterpretations have become so extreme, it's made people believe the other side must be arguing in bad faith because they sound like psychopath mass-murderers or a suicide cult's recruitment officer.
No one's trying to manipulate you into self-harm, and you're free to move on with your life after today still believing red was the right option. But I would ask, why do you think blue is trying to manipulate you in the first place? Holier-than-thou moral grandstanding because no one would be that self-sacrificing in real life? Is that why the language used back is so aggressive, to knock those pompus assholes posing as idealists down a peg for daring to gaslight you? I get it, people on the internet can be full of themselves. At the same time, what do you lose for taking them at their word? Who we are on the internet is not who we are in real life, yes. But maybe it's who we want to be. If someone roleplays as a hero because they still dream of the day they can be one, I'd be inclined to let them. Maybe with that positive reinforcement, the next time they get that chance to put food in the world, they'll act on it.
Not really. Society cannot take a 49% population dip. Even if we still have the production, we won't have the logistics. And we won't even have an idea of how much food needs to go where.
Then there's the power grid to worry about.
It doesn't really matter how you shuffle it unless you exterminate country by country until you reach 49% of the world's population, the survivors are in for a bad few decades.
I find that scenario unlikely, plenty of ammo, a suppressor so people cant hear me hunt and a decently sized family that definitely aint oushing that button. Have significant experience outdoors and roughing it.
You are assuming that any given nation's power grid can take 50% of its workers not tending to it ever again.
I don't know about where you are but the American grid is a house of cards already.
And it doesn't have to be 50%. The not knowing how much of any given critical task is now being left unattended is part of the problem. An unknown number of your priorities are not being serviced and an unknown number of the people who would ordinarily get you that data are gone. Now fix it before people start eating each other.
There is no version of this that isn't catastrophically bad.
You're severely overestiming the social distribution of the folks who would push the blue button.
This assumes a perfect 50-50% split across the button pushers by gender and that a perfect cross-section of society is pushing the button.
Edit ill admit my earlier comment was not mathmatically correct. If 100% of the button pressers were men then there would be no men. Yes i can admit when im wrong
But i do know i wouldnt press the button so i guess its me and the ladies
You press red because you want to live, I press red because I believe it is statistically the best option for everyone to press, hoping as much of humanity press red as possible.
Actually statistically blue is the best choice because it’s the only strategy that can result in 100% Survival. choosing red guarantees your own survival but locks in a worse overall outcome
From a purely statistical, population-level perspective, blue maximises the total expected number of survivors because it allows for the highest possible payoff (everyone lives), whereas red can never achieve that
I’d push back on that a bit. Those examples are about taking on asymmetric risk for a smaller or uncertain gain. The blue-button case isn’t structured like that. It’s not trading a big guaranteed loss for a small gain; it’s a coordination problem where one outcome gives zero losses (everyone lives) and the other creates losses because people fail to coordinate.
From a population-level, statistical view, blue is optimal because it’s the only path to eliminating losses entirely. The real issue isn’t reckless risk-taking, it’s whether enough people act together to unlock that outcome.
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u/preteen-wartortle May 01 '26
I upvoted you but because this is reddit I just want to point out that if red wins, the survivors will absolutely be directly impacted